Today’s Amish communities are as entrepreneurial as the Shakers, helping to support and build their communities using their gifts as honest artisans. The world appreciates the unique custom designs that contrast so obviously from the mass produced disposable furniture offered in most showrooms today. These solid wood designs are premium heirlooms that showcase the integrity of a community very much like their brothers and sisters in the Shaker villages.

Like the Shakers the Amish live every part of their life based on religious principles. This includes the quality of their work, whether at home or in the workshop. Today the Amish wood worker in Northern Indiana crafts the same designs with the same quality of materials and skill as their ancestors. The same principles and beliefs held by the earliest Shaker furniture designer and builder are still honored by the Amish woodworker. With traditional designs like the traditional Burlington table or the neatly lined Bungalow chifferobe, chest, bed, dresser and nightstand you can bring the same warm style to your home.

The first step to organizing a closet or armoire is deciding what stays and what goes. Starting with a clean slate is a benefit few acquire, but if it is possible to empty the closet and then begin elimination, it will optimize your efforts. If your discards are truly reusable then there are two benefits. Parting with gently but seldom worn clothing and shoes is made easier when the items go to a charity. You get your needed space and organization and someone else benefits. Remember to add a basket in the closet to collect clothing discards regularly.

Reassess your storage space regularly. To keep your closets functioning optimally you really need to look at them closely every six months.

BE PREPARED

Clothes, coats and accessories stored for the season need to be protected from light, moisture, and insects. Keep a supply of acid-free tissue paper to wrap textiles in and cedar inserts to stave off insects. Dried lavender is also another great smelling option to include.

STORE IT RIGHT

Simple swatches of ultra suede fabric can be glued to wooden hangers using a bit of craft glue. These swatches will provide just enough friction to keep your delicates and hard-to-hang items from giving you the slip.

Purses are a great example of why having acid-free tissue on hand is important. You can stuff your favorite bags with acid-free tissue paper, helping to keep their shape when not in use. You can either purchase shoe bags or simply stitch two panels of flannel along three sides. Slip your shoes inside with a sachet of cedar shavings inside them to protect your shoes from light and dust.

Purchase bulk, low cost, twenty-inch cloth napkins or cut fabric squares to size. These squares can be used to protective coats, vests, jackets, etc. that you don’t or can’t store in garment bags. Make a slit in the center of each one to slip over the hanger.

Computer printers can help you create ID tags from digital pictures that you can hang attached to card-stock tags to identify the contents inside of your garment bags. This will save you many frustrating minutes trying to remember which bag holds your tux and which one your winter coat.

CUSTOMIZE YOUR CLOSET

When deciding on an armoire or closet try to opt for one made from solid woods and houses adjustable shelves rather than fixed ones. The Amish craftsmen have designed many styles in many varieties of woods and stains. Shelves that move will allow you to change the arrangement of the closet as your storage needs evolve. By opting for a cabinet with shelves you can use open containers or baskets for things like shoes or small items. Organizing like things together in bins, baskets, or boxes is the best way to minimize chaos.

THINK PRACTICALLY

Remember to place heavy items below waist level and rarely used items on the higher, harder to reach, shelves. Stash a step stool beside the closet, and you can even store things in closed containers or boxes on top, maximizing your storage space.

PUT THE LIGHTS ON

If a closet is dark inside, it will be difficult to find what you need. Consider adding a battery-operated light if your closet has no power source. Note that incandescent light can also help prevent mildew.

 

Armoire – An early french term for a cabinet, wardrobe or closet that is usually tall. The armoire originally was used for storing weaponry in medieval times rather than clothing. Usually double doors cover the interior which contains shelves, open space or hanging apparatuses.  

Wardrobe - A wardrobe is a cabinet intended primarily for the storage of clothing. British vocabulary sometimes gave it the name “oakley” because the closets were constructed predominently from oak. A hanging cupboard, the wardrobe evolved from a room-sized walk in with shelves and lockers to what we know today. A wardrobe can be a huge, cumbersome and highly ornate cabinet or a smaller more diminuitive storage unit. First constructed from oak, later walnut became the wood of choice for many wardrobes.

 In Europe many homes were never designed with a built-in closet. The first wardrobes were patterned after the armor bearing closets known as armoires. The wardrobe usually has double doors, carried to the floor and usually covering the drawers at the base. Inside there may be hanging rods as well as sliding shelves and may have mirrors.

Cheffonier or Chiffonier –  Some definitions describe a chiffonier as a tall set of drawers while others say it is a piece of furniture that is smaller than a sideboard with the whole of the front enclosed by doors and typically sits wide and low; a sort of buffet. There was often a shelf, raised and hosting a pierced brass gallery at its back. The doors were usually panelled and even edged with brass-beading. A chiffoniers feet were either pads or claws, or gilded sphinxes.

The French translation means “rag-gatherer” or “rag-picker”, suggesting that it was originally built to receive odds and ends that had no other storage place in the home. Cheffoniers date from the Empire style of furniture in England and were built of the favorite wood of that era, the rosewood.

Chifferobe or Chifforobe – A hybrid piece of furniture built to function as a closet in the twentieth century. Popular more in the southern United States than anywhere else, chifferobes were first seen advertised in the 1908 Sears and Roebucks Catalogue. The product description described the chifferobe as a modern invention. Many passages of popular southern literature (To Kill a Mockingbird, Wise Blood and The Ballad of Sad Café, to mention a few) use the furniture known as a chifferobe in their settings. The name chifforobe came from blending the words chiffonier and wardrobe.

Traditionally the chifferobe combines both a long space for hanging clothes like a wardrobe along with a set of drawers like a chest of drawers. Most designs host a side by side function, with closet down one and the drawers on the other.

The Amish carpenters of Northern Indiana build custom made closets for your home without ever tracking in a single footprint or leaving a shred of saw dust. With solid hardwoods and dovetailed drawers these wardrobes and armoires are available for living rooms, offices and bedrooms in oak, cherry, maple and hickory, along with a wide variety of stains. The interiors can even be personalized. For the nursery or child’s bedroom the Amish have designed an armoire changing table just their size.

Most chifferobes are divided up into three useful areas. One side will house several large drawers where you can organize your socks, belts, undergarments, shirts, or other clothing items you want to keep organized. Above the drawers is a cabinet that opens up to reveal several adjustable shelves where you can organize and easily access pants, shirts, or sweaters. The other side has a full-length door that opens up to a closet area where you can hang your dresses, skirts, suits, slacks, or other clothes you want to keep from wrinkling by hanging them instead.

Chifferobes are a great choice for your expanding wardrobe and can offer plenty of extra storage space without having to enlarge your existing closet area. You can also use a chifferobe in homes and apartments that have smaller than expected closet space or no closets at all. They are particularly useful in loft apartments where storage space might be limited or nonexistent.